Template talk:Anglophone states

First p0st!
The template should show states with an Anglophone majority, and preferably one over 40%. I've included what I think are anglophone nations although I'm not entirely sure on some of the islands. The three crown dependencies are included as they are not part of the UK, merely dependent on the Crown. I don't know whether to include South Africa, whilst the English presence is undeniable, as far as I know, it's not a majority. I don't know the statistics of either Singapore or HK so I can't include them. +Hexagon1 (t) 13:00, 7 January 2008 (UTC)


 * English isn't the majority language in Suriname according to this site. Could you provide citations for the inclusion of Suriname. Rozth (talk) 17:30, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I made assumptions with some nations, as I stated above, so why don't you remove it then? +Hexagon1 (t) 12:00, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, I assumed the template was based on a source and figured it be more polite to request a citation first. I would have removed the country, but I see you already have. Cheers. Rozth (talk) 12:20, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Cool. +Hexagon1 (t) 13:41, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

RSA
Shouldn't South Africa be included, as it is the language most used by the government, media etc, as well as the most understood. It may not be the main mother tounge language, and according to most sources, the country is part of the Anglosphere. Also, I may be wrong, but couldn't my above description also be appropriate for countries such as Nigeria, Singapore, Hong Kong and the Philippines were English is an official language, and the most widely understood. I believe that this template, should be renamed English speaking countries or Anglosphere, as there is no actual template that lists all countries where English has official status Stevvvv4444 (talk) 21:37, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I am not sure about RSA, as I said above. English is a part of the culture of many countries, but actually walking down a random street and seeing everything in English and everyone speaking English is another thing. +Hexagon1 (t) 05:05, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Citations for all included countries please
Hi, please provide citations for any included countries and not make assumptions which is very misleading and unencyclopedic. --Bardcom (talk) 20:10, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Anglosphere the same as the Anglophone world ??
This template presents the Angloshere in terms which are too linguistically based - ie the Anglosphere seems to be more a matter of socio-cultural values, and politico-legal ideas than language. It does not seem that the Anglosphere is the same thing as the Anglophone world, although there is a lot of overlap. Arcan (talk) 11:10, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Belize
Shouldn't Belize be included? English is the only official language there, although not everyone speaks it well. It's a matter of education and diglossia, in my opinion. --Atitarev (talk) 23:15, 11 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I saw this comment: Don't add Belize : only spoken by a minority. I disagree. A country where the only official language is English should definitely be included, even if many people cannot speak it. --Atitarev (talk) 21:49, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Don't add Jamaica?
According to this book, cited at the article English-speaking world, Jamaica is one of the major Anglophone countries. It probably comes down to whether you define their patois as a truly separate language or not, but that author at least identifies almost the entire Jamaican population as English speaking. Fishal (talk) 07:16, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Whitespace
The whitespace has been removed from the bottom of the template to the Merge box. This was causing an empty whitespace on all the pages that use this template. &mdash;  .`^) Paine Ellsworthdiss`cuss (^`.   05:57, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Proposed merge
It has been suggested that Template:Anglophone states and Template:English official language clickable map be merged together. For those who would like to see what this might look like... Please see my sandbox version. &mdash;  .`^) Paine Ellsworthdiss`cuss (^`.   02:22, 20 September 2009 (UTC) In June of 1973, I headed for Ethiopia as a Peace Corp volunteer. You'll notice on the map in my sandbox above that Ethiopia is not included, not even as a light-blue, non-native "official" language nation. Training lasted nine weeks in the town of Dire Dawa (Dear'-a Dah'-wah), just an hour or so drive from the village of Harar on the edge of the Ogaden desert, where I would teach basic electricity to ninth graders.

During my stay in Dire Dawa, a dinner was attended by all the local Peace Corps volunteers, our instructors, who were mostly Amharas and Tigrans, plus a few administrators who were visiting from their posts in the capital, Addis Ababa (which is Amharic for "New Flower"). While we ate, the discussions remained isolated to the many tables and were about many different subjects. The people at one table began to discuss the issue of an official "national language of Ethiopia". At some point during the dessert hour, that discussion had spread until the whole room had become involved. People stood up to let everybody know their views on the subject. I was thoroughly engrossed in the issue, but kept quiet, as I wanted to hear everyone's voiced thoughts on the matter.

Several Amharas stood up and gave powerful reasons why their language, Amharic, ought to be the official national language. They were the majority, after all. Most Ethiopians were Amharas, and a large percentage of the rest of the population could at least speak, if not read, Amharic. A few Tigrans got a chance to stand and explain why the Tigran language deserves a shot at being the official national language (by the way, both Tigran and Amharic are dialects of ancient Arabic). There were also a few advocates for other Ethiopian dialects, as well as the widely spoken language of Italian, and some even believed that French deserved the prestigious position.

As I said, I was completely absorbed by the words of each and every person who proudly stood up for their language and gave both weak and powerful reasons why their language should be the official national language of Ethiopia. Things had begun to die down, nobody else was standing, and it occurred to me... the whole and entire presentation, the words of each and every speaker, the language all of them used to get their ideas across... was English! And for a moment I was quietly astounded that absolutely nobody had stood up for English as the official language.

I gathered my courage and stood. I am tall, and I easily garner attention when I stand. The few isolated conversations that had begun then died down, and I was allowed to speak. I noted to the large crowd that the entire presentation of each and every prior speaker had been in English, so whether or not they believed it, whether or not they agreed to it, English was already Ethiopia's "unofficial" national language. Why not make it official?

Well! You, dear Gentle Reader, would not believe the looks I got from the people at the tables. They all looked at me as if I was completely and totally crazy! English? The official language??? You must be daft! Hey! this guy's one beer short of a six-pack, several cards missing from his deck, when someone said "brains" he thought they said "trains" and took the last one out of town. Sit down loser! Nobody actually said those last three words, but they said the other ones, and I could tell it was time to slowly shrink back down into my seat.

Who would have guessed that such an opinion would not be respected? would be a "foot-in-the-mouth" for me? Anyway, I've come to enjoy mentioning the obvious and being put down by narrow-minded people. You'd be surprised how many of them go home and think and rethink about the obvious thing I had pointed out. I got a lot of people the next day who actually apologized for their words and behavior the previous night at dinner.

The whole thing was a grand experience for me! And yet, as I said before, when you look at the map in my sandbox, you will note that Ethiopia is still "in the gray" about English as an official language. There ought to be a fourth color on that map to denote the many countries where English is a widely spoken "unofficial" language... like the great nation of Ethiopia.


 * I think this merger is a good idea. Debresser (talk) 00:26, 25 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Agree. However, the map needs to be cleaned up, like Malaysia has EN as an official language, Singapore has it as their main language, etc.

Nicholas.tan (talk) 15:06, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you, Nicholas.tan, I'm working on that.
 * &mdash;  .`^) Paine Ellsworthdiss`cuss (^`.   03:23, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

(out). ✅. Malaysia and Singapore have been added to the maps, both the official map and my sandbox version. &mdash;  .`^) Paine Ellsworthdiss`cuss (^`.   06:29, 7 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Agree. But, the table should show what the light blue countries are as most people would not know what the countries are...Likelife (talk) 16:10, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Hi, Likelife, are you saying that the "mouseover", which shows what the countries are, and the fact that one can click on the country and go to its language article or section, are you saying that this isn't enough?
 * &mdash;  .`^) Paine Ellsworthdiss`cuss (^`.   03:23, 7 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Agree I suppose. Regarding the Anglophone template, perhaps the little note should be changed to say "countries and territories" rather than just "countries", 4 of the 5 European entries are the same country (the only one not part of the United Kingdom is Ireland, the other 4 are the same country).  TJ   Spyke   14:56, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
 * ✅. Well, in my sandbox version, anyway.  Thank you, TJ Spyke!
 * &mdash;  .`^) Paine Ellsworthdiss`cuss (^`.   03:23, 7 October 2009 (UTC)